USICH Blog

Affordable and Supportive Housing Archive

To accompany the release of Opening Doors, as amended in 2015, we will be taking a closer look at each of the four key updates to the document this week. We’ll be sharing comments from partners, community members, and the USICH staff on how the updates are impacting their daily work, helping to prevent and end homelessness across America, as well as highlight the key changes around the updated topic.

Spotlight on Medicaid

"When launched in 2010, Opening Doors was more than a blueprint for effective Federal, state and local partnerships to end homelessness, it motivated all of us - inside and outside of government - to work harder, together, to address the needs of our most vulnerable people. Five years later, it is just as impactful; a platform on which proven solutions such as supportive housing can expand, and an affirmation that services through Medicaid, coordinated assessment and access, and cooperation among systems must grow too if we are to succeed and tackle homelessness once and for all." –Deb DeSantis, President/CEO, Corporation for Supportive Housing

The Affordable Care Act creates new opportunities to leverage Medicaid to end homelessness, specifically by financing services that can help people obtain and maintain housing as well as achieve health and well-being. All states now have the opportunity to expand Medicaid eligibility to nearly all individuals under the age of 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the Federal poverty level. As of May 2015, 30 states including the District of Columbia have acted to expand Medicaid programs, and provide health coverage to millions of adults without dependent children for the first time. More than 16 million Americans have gained health coverage, bringing the number of people without insurance down to historic lows. Included in the newly insured are approximately six million of the lowest income Americans, who have gained access to public health insurance through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). And while the data is limited on the specific number of people experiencing homelessness who have gained coverage, we have numerous reports that enrollment in Medicaid and other types of health insurance among people experiencing homelessness has grown significantly.

On behalf of the entire team at USICH, the teams at our Federal member agencies, and our many dedicated state and local partners working tirelessly to prevent and end homelessness, I am thrilled to share with you this updated version of Opening Doors, as amended in 2015.

This document is the culmination of a tremendous amount of work by countless individuals who contributed ideas and information through online forums, in meetings, and by analyzing their agencies’ programs and policies, helping to identify best practices and lessons learned from their years of experience. That collective wisdom has shaped and strengthened this amendment and its focus on objectives and strategies informed by data, research, and results.

The release of this amendment could not be more timely. We have made great strides toward the goals established in Opening Doors, but there remains a large amount of work to be done. Today, on the anniversary of the original publication, we reaffirm our commitment to achieving an end to homelessness in America, with even greater confidence in our collective ability to solve this problem.

Together, we are proving that homelessness does not have to appear in the pages of American history as a permanent fixture, but as a problem the American people overcame. It is my hope that the release of this amendment to Opening Doors will help move us closer to the lasting solutions that we can and must implement.

This blog was originally published on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation blog, Impatient Optimists.

By David Wertheimer

Twenty-five years ago, in the earlier years of the AIDS epidemic, health care and housing providers figured out that without housing, the health of people living with AIDS deteriorated far more rapidly than for those who had stable homes. AIDS Housing of Washington, now Building Changes, helped coin a critically important phrase that became a game changer in the fight against AIDS: “Housing is healthcare.”

A quarter century later the phrase still rings true, and has expanded meaning in the challenging work of ending homelessness for all people, including families, single adults, youth, and veterans.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently hosted more than 100 state and local leaders in ending family homelessness together with health care leaders responsible for implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid expansion here in Washington State. As the health care system changes, the opportunities to integrate and improve the delivery of both housing and health services to families recovering from homelessness have the potential to be transformational.

What might this look like in practice? We can now envision and realize the possibilities, thanks to a 5-year, $65 million competitive federal grant for State Innovations in Medicaid secured by the Washington State Health Care Authority. In part, this grant offers the opportunity to think in new and innovative ways about “social determinants of health,” the broad set of conditions in which we live and work, at home and with our families, including the air we breathe and the water we drink, that play a more important role in promoting long-term health than medical interventions.

Although they have long been assisting families and individuals experiencing homelessness, more and more public housing authorities (PHAs) are emerging as heroes in the fight to end homelessness –making housing those experiencing homelessness a formal focus of their efforts, often overcoming regulatory hurdles and limited resources. In many communities from Houston to Asheville, contributions from PHAs are helping to reduce the number of individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Given the scale of PHA resources, even smaller and incremental contributions of vouchers and housing units by PHAs, especially when combined with the resources of Continuums of Care (CoCs), can have a big impact on homelessness.

Much of my passion for ending homelessness comes from my time on the front-lines where I worked to connect very vulnerable people – adults with disabling conditions who had often spent years without a safe and stable place to call home – to permanent supportive housing. Even in my small city, there were times when units were not available for people who needed them the most. We simply didn’t have enough permanent supportive housing units, and even the units that we had were not always being targeted to people experiencing chronic homelessness. We know that this is too often the case in many communities across the country.

The Obama Administration is committed to ending chronic homelessness nationally in 2017. Achieving this goal nationally is only possible if we achieve it locally. To do so, communities across the country must have enough available permanent supportive housing units to serve people currently experiencing chronic homelessness and to prevent people with disabling conditions from becoming chronically homeless in the future.

A critical first step to achieving our shared goal is to determine the specific combination of strategies needed to increase the availability of permanent supportive housing locally, which really depends on each community’s supply and availability. Some communities with a large supply of permanent supportive housing can make significant progress towards the goal just by improving the targeting of existing units. Most communities will also need to create new supportive housing through both targeted grants and mainstream resources.

Three months ago, after a campaign led by Mayor Mitch Landrieu, New Orleans became the first major city to effectively end Veteran homelessness. During an intense six-month campaign, community partners connected every Veteran living on the street or in emergency shelter who would accept housing with an apartment of his or her own, with supportive services scaled to the Veteran’s needs. Now we actively work every day to maintain a “functional zero” in Veteran homelessness by housing any newly homeless Veteran within an average of 30 days.

I firmly believe that every community can and should end Veteran homelessness.

Yes, New Orleans had some advantages. For one thing, the local VA and its partners had already achieved a significant reduction in Veteran homelessness before we started the final drive in June 2014. At that point, we had already driven down the number of Veterans suffering in homelessness from 660 in the January 2011 Point-in-Time (PIT) count to 193 in the March 2014 count. For another, we have a very strong visionary leader in Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who set the bold goal of ending Veteran homelessness a full year before the federal deadline, convened the key players, and recruited active duty military and Veteran groups to help with outreach.

But in other important ways we were at a distinct disadvantage: As of the 2014 PIT count, New Orleans still had one of the highest per capita rates of Veteran homelessness in the nation as compared to our general population of only 379,000 residents. We were also at a disadvantage in resources: Compared to many other cities, we have precious few ways to pay for housing and services other than federal funds. And when pushing ourselves to get to zero, we were confronting the challenge of housing those whom we had always failed to connect to housing before – those Veterans who tended to have the most complex challenges and who for the most part were not eligible for HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program.

When my son was little, he had a favorite stuffed animal called “elephant.” Elephant went everywhere Benjy went! One of my favorite memories is standing in his bedroom doorway and watching him sleep in his “new big bed” with his arm wrapped around elephant under the covers. This memory was important to me last week as I attended the National Alliance to End Homelessness Family and Youth Conference to present on the Administration for Children and Families’ early childhood efforts to support young children experiencing homelessness.

There were multiple workshops sharing the amazing efforts of programs and communities across the country. Secretary Julian Castro spoke to a large audience about the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s work and HUD’s linking with partners including the Veterans Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. He said that people need more than just housing; families don’t live in silos and it’s why the collaboration and coordination between HUD, VA and HHS is so important – from the federal level to the local level.

The link between domestic violence and homelessness is well-documented. Regardless of whether survivors seek help through homelessness services, housing assistance, or domestic violence programs, research shows a strong correlation between domestic violence and homelessness. A Department of Justice study found that at least one in four women were homeless as a result of domestic violence and a Massachusetts study found that a staggering 92% of homeless women experienced severe physical or sexual assault at some point in their lives. Often, it is not only the victim, but the children of domestic violence victims that suffer as a result of abuse. Domestic violence is a leading cause of family homelessness in the United States.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has made ending family homelessness in Washington a focus of their state efforts starting with the launch of the Sound Families Initiative in 2000. The Foundation has helped fund thousands of new housing units for families experiencing homelessness and is investing in approaches that are aligned with the strategies identified by USICH’s Family Connection resource, including coordinated entry and rapid housing.

In 2009, with the financial backing of the Gates Foundation, the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV) launched a five year pilot program testing the success of a survivor-centered, Housing First approach to preventing homelessness for survivors of domestic violence and their families. The pilot worked with 13 existing programs in 13 urban, rural and tribal areas across the state and the findings demonstrate positive outcomes across all sites.

Tomorrow, the National Alliance to End Homelessness kicks off the National Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessness in San Diego, California. The conference provides a forum of learning and sharing for hundreds of policymakers, practitioners, and federal, local and private partners, all working to end family and youth homelessness. Workshops will focus around three learning tracks on Rapid Re-Housing, Youth, and Systems, and cover topics including family intervention, crisis response systems and coordinated entry process. Keynote speakers include Nan Roman, President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Toni Atkins, Speaker of the Assembly, California State Assembly, and Secretary Julián Castro, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

USICH is looking forward to attending and participating in the conference. Below is a list of the workshops where USICH staff will be presenting or moderating sessions during the conference.

In September 2014, William H. Bentley, Associate Commissioner of the Family & Youth Services Bureau and former USICH Executive Director Laura Zeilinger, highlighted the impact of Runaway and Homeless Youth Act-funded programs for youth experiencing homelessness. These services – street outreach, basic center and transitional living (including maternity group homes) programs – are critical to meet the immediate needs of some of our most vulnerable young people.

We know there are different ways that information is captured across Federal programs about the extent and scope of youth at risk of or experiencing homelessness. We also know that youth can experience homelessness in many ways including being unsheltered or living on the street, doubled-up or couch surfing, and this is impacted by complicated issues including poverty, abuse, violence, trauma, and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. As communities increase their capacity to capture information on youth, our understanding of the prevalence and characteristics of youth homelessness is improving and helping to shape strategies that respond to the diverse needs of young people.

Most great stories have a beginning, middle, and end. When it comes to the story of Virginia’s efforts to end Veteran homelessness, we started with the end in mind – a vision of a Virginia where Veteran homelessness, when it does occur, is rare, brief, and non-recurring.

The Beginning – Defining the Challenge, Getting Organized!

In the summer of 2013, the Virginia Department of Veteran Services and Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness partnered with the VA VISN Network Coordinator, Jeff Doyle, and local leaders in communities to hold a statewide Veteran homeless summit. This event marked the beginning of increased collaborations among federal, state and community partners. We believed that ending Veteran homelessness in Virginia was not an impossible task.

The goal of our effort was supported by the Governor’s Coordinating Council on Homelessness, which includes representatives across state agencies that play a role in addressing homelessness as well as local providers, nonprofits, and other community leaders. Our focus was to unify mainstream and Veteran specific housing and services while continuing to shift to housing first statewide. The success of this endeavor relied on leveraging existing partnerships with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Housing And Urban Development (HUD) that the Virginia Department of Veteran Services (DVS) had nurtured. Along with federal agencies, DVS built on partnerships with VA Medical Centers (VAMCs), SSVF providers, and the VASH programs. Also paramount were the relationships that the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness (VCEH) has with local Continuums of Care (CoCs), including nonprofit housing and homeless providers, local jurisdictions, and other mainstream providers involved with local homelessness planning.

We often say at USICH that to end homelessness nationally, we must end homelessness locally. To help communities optimize their current resources to accelerate progress towards ending Veteran homelessness, we have identified ten essential strategies for communities to increase leadership, collaboration and coordination among programs serving Veterans experiencing homelessness, and promote rapid access to permanent housing for all Veterans. Each strategy is accompanied by resources to help community leaders and stakeholders understand how to implement these strategies more effectively.

Meanwhile, we have been working on the Federal level to assist communities as they work to reduce the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness and build the systems to prevent its recurrence. Below is a highlight of some of the Federal efforts aimed at helping communities develop and optimize their systems of connecting Veterans experiencing homelessness to permanent housing and the appropriate services and resources Veterans need to have a safe and stable place to call home.

This week, President Obama put forward a 2016 Budget that again demonstrates his Administration’s deep commitment to ending homelessness. As Interim Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, I am pleased to share that this Budget calls for the investments needed to end chronic homelessness in 2017, make significant progress toward ending homelessness among families, children and youth in 2020, and sustain efforts to end Veteran homelessness in 2015. In his Budget, the President calls for nearly $5.5 billion in targeted homelessness assistance. In addition to targeted homelessness assistance, the Budget also includes key investments to mainstream programs needed to end homelessness, such as 67,000 new Housing Choice Vouchers to support low-income households, including families experiencing homelessness; survivors of domestic and dating violence; families with children in foster care; youth aging out of foster care; and Veterans experiencing homelessness, regardless of their discharge status.

As the year draws to a close, I am struck by how far we have come in our effort to end homelessness. 2014 has indeed been a historic year. We have an Administration and White House that is fully committed to ending homelessness among populations, starting with Veterans in 2015, and where this commitment is not just a set of words, but a set of actions and a clear plan with clear measures. Mayors, governors, and county executives are themselves stepping up with commitments, followed by actions. Communities across the country are working hard to achieve their own local goals, bringing partners to the table, setting 100-day targets, creatively leveraging all resources possible, and helping hundreds of people every day to unlock doors to their own homes and to new lives.

In 2012, the number of families experiencing homelessness living in the shelter system in Massachusetts had increased significantly. As a shelter entitlement State, Massachusetts law provides immediate access to shelter to families that are determined eligible. Realizing that the homelessness crisis required immediate action from multiple partners, affordable housing owners came together, in concert with the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, to assist in the effort by offering an additional housing solution. As a result of that meeting in 2012, the owners agreed to donate seed money to a non-profit pilot which would be known as New Lease, which aims to prioritize people experiencing homelessness for HUD’s multifamily properties’ affordable rental units. At the outset this group of affordable housing owners agreed to rent 10 – 15 percent of vacant, Project Based Section 8 family apartments to New Lease. As of December, 2014, 80 families have been housed through New Lease.

Many readers have likely heard about the great progress being made toward ending homelessness in Salt Lake and Utah. Earlier this fall, I had the privilege of joining more than 475 people for the 11th Annual Utah Homeless Summit organized by Utah Department of Workforce Services’ Housing and Community Development Division. The Summit also coincided with the release of Utah’s 2014 Comprehensive Report on Homelessness prepared by the State Community Services Office. The report describes the remarkable progress Utah has made under its ten-year plan to end both chronic and Veteran homelessness by the end of 2015, documenting that “Chronic homelessness has declined 72 percent since 2005 and chronic homelessness among Veterans has reached an effective zero.” Such progress should help convince skeptics that making progress on homelessness can be a reality in communities all across the country. Summit participants spent the day both celebrating Utah’s progress and engaging in dialogue to ensure that progress is sustained.

This week is Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, a time when many Americans are engaged to help our neighbors who live without food security and without a safe and stable place to call home. For those of us who work to end hunger and homelessness year-round, this week provides a fresh opportunity to gain new ground, to meet and recruit new partners, to share meals with neighbors, and to extend a helping hand. It’s an opportunity to look forward and take action, a time to focus intently on the steps we need to take together to end hunger and homelessness once and for all.

Reallocations will help communities make the system changes needed to end homelessness, and in this year’s Continuum of Care NOFA, there is once again a strong emphasis on reallocations. As in FY 2013, HUD is allowing reallocations of funds to new permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness and rapid re-housing for families with children. HUD and USICH encourage CoCs to take full advantage of reallocations, shifting funds away from underperforming or less cost-effective programs and toward evidence-informed models.

People experiencing homelessness need homes. This is the simple solution to ending homelessness, right? The complexity comes in finding, and funding, the homes. Read on to find out how stakeholders in King County, Washington, are succeeding at both.

Whether as a result of a health or economic crisis or fleeing domestic violence, the experience of homelessness is extremely traumatizing for families generally, and can be especially traumatizing for children. We know that there is not a one-size-fits-all solution for every family experiencing a housing crisis. Connecting families to housing interventions and services that are appropriate to their specific needs is an essential part of the actions we identified as critical to meeting the goal of ending homelessness.

The Notice of Funding Availability for the Fiscal Year 2014 Funds in the FY 2013 - FY 2014 Continuum of Care (CoC) Program Competition asks CoCs to continue investing in what works and to target interventions appropriately to needs. It calls on CoCs to make the final push to reach our goal of ending chronic homelessness, make greater progress on family homelessness, and build the partnerships needed to reach and engage Veterans and youth experiencing homelessness in services. Although the policy priorities and many aspects of this NOFA remain the same as in FY 2013, there are also some changes and new elements.

On Friday, September 19, USICH is hosting a webinar to help CoCs understand the FY 2014 NOFA and suggestions on how to make it successful. Meanwhile, here are some key highlights that CoCs should know.

This week CSH, in partnership with the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, published Creating a Medicaid Supportive Housing Services Benefit. In the white paper CSH lays out an easy-to-follow framework for states that want to create a Medicaid benefit to pay for the services in supportive housing. The framework consists of five action steps: 1) Determine benefit eligibility criteria; 2) Define the package of services to be delivered; 3) Align the state Medicaid plan; 4) Establish a financing and reinvestment strategy; and 5) Operationalize the benefit.

Ending homelessness among families and children is a priority for the nation and for every community. Millions of extremely low-income households do not have access to affordable housing, putting them at-risk of housing instability and the types of crises that can result in homelessness. The challenge is clear: Our most recent data show that 222,197 people in families—an estimated 70,960 households—were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2013. In the first three years of implementation of Opening Doors, we have reduced homelessness among families by eight percent.

Seattle-based nonprofit housing provider DESC will create new units of permanent supportive housing in the Interbay neighborhood downtown. The units will serve 97 people who are experiencing homelessness and live with health issues.

There are nearly 6,000 unaccompanied youth in Massachusetts. Experiencing homelessness often prevents motivated, hard-working youth from graduating high school and achieving success. A Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders article shows that without intervention, only about 27 percent of them will graduate high school. Opening Doors, the federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness, sets a goal of ending youth homelessness by 2020 by ensuring communities can connect youth with stable housing, permanent connections, education, and employment all while improving youths’ social and emotional well-being.

Once the city with the highest rate of homelessness in the country, today New Orleans has reduced homelessness to levels that are lower than before the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. By overcoming incredible challenges, New Orleans has shown that ending chronic and Veteran homelessness is possible in every American city.

Based on previous analysis, we already knew that the VA's Supportive Services for Veteran Families program is not only effective, but it is cost-effective as well. It now costs only about $2,400 to serve each Veteran household through the program, a 12 percent decrease since its first year of operations.

So what makes SSVF such an effective program in ending and preventing homelessness for Veteran households? There are several key ingredients.

“In Baltimore,” Adrienne Breidenstine explains, “We have a core group of youth service providers, funders, and government agencies that are committed to The Journey Home, Baltimore’s plan to end homelessness, and the vision that homelessness in Baltimore is rare and brief for children and youth experiencing homelessness. Now is the time for us to harness our community’s energy and commitment to the cause and translate it into action.”

Yesterday marked the fourth Anniversary of the launch of Opening Doors, the first-ever Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. In four years, we have changed the trajectory of homelessness in America. In just the first three years of implementation, Opening Doors led to significant reductions in homelessness, including an eight percent reduction in homelessness among families, a 16 percent reduction in chronic homelessness, and a 24 percent reduction in homelessness among Veterans. And we are hopeful that we will be able announce even greater reductions when the 2014 Point-In-Time Count data are available later this year.

The progress we are making across the nation has proven that Opening Doors is the right plan with the right set of strategies. Opening Doors also provides a foundation and scaffolding upon which we can continue to innovate and refine the solutions that will end homelessness in this country.

This year, we’re considering amending the plan again to include more of what we’ve learned from our progress.

Today, Community Solutions’s 100,000 Homes Campaign announced it has achieved its goal to connect 100,000 people experiencing chronic homelessness to safe, stable housing—101,628 people, to be exact.

At an event on Capitol Hill, former Army Private First Class Alvin Hill, a Veteran from Washington, DC, shared his story of returning home to civilian-life, losing his job and his apartment, and falling into years of homelessness. Mr. Hill remarked that it was “a tragedy that anyone who would put his life on the line for America could return home to sleep on the streets.” In April, Alvin Hill became the 100,000th person to achieve permanent housing through the 100,000 Homes Campaign.

We congratulate Mr. Hill and we congratulate Community Solutions and all of the local and federal partners who have teamed-up to get the job done. This is an incredible milestone.

Here are three things everyone should know about what reaching milestones like this one really means:

Houston has reduced homelessness by 37 percent since 2011, city and community leaders just announced, attributing the extraordinary achievement to an unprecedented level of collaboration and synergy among public and private organizations to realize the objectives of the Federal strategic plan to end homelessness.

“We are on the right path! Our Housing First strategy of creating permanent accommodations with robust supportive services is working,” Houston Mayor Annise Parker said of the strategy undergirding the approach to ending homelessness in the city. “Moreover, the coordinated team-effort of over 60 different organizations aligning their resources and efforts is working!”

With university, city health and human services and county support, Houston’s Coalition for the Homeless conducted a federally mandated point-in-time (PIT) estimate of the number of people without a safe and stable home on Jan. 30, 2014, and found that there were 3,187 fewer people experiencing homelessness than in previous counts. In 2011, the PIT count determined 8,538 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. In 2012, 7,356. In 2013, 6,359 and in the most recent count, 5,351.

Yesterday, more than 600 providers and stakeholders from across the country joined us for a great discussion about what ending homelessness among families means and what achieving it will require. We were joined by Laura Zeilinger, USICH Executive Director; Ann Oliva, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs and Director of the Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD CPD/SNAPS); Ali Sutton, Policy Advisor at the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (HHS ACF); and Debra Rog, Associate Director at Westat.

At the end of our discussion, we received a lot of really great questions, many of which we didn’t have time to answer. In this post, we provide responses to two of these questions and will be responding to more of these questions over the next few weeks.

Over the course of just one year, New Orleans has reduced homelessness among Veterans by 43 percent and chronic homelessness by 30 percent. In one year, New Orleans reduced unsheltered homelessness by 21 percent, 85 percent since 2011.

Since 2007, New Orleans has reduced overall homelessness by 83 percent, showing steady annual decreases since 2009. The number or people experiencing homelessness in New Orleans is now three percent below the number of people counted before Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This is a stunning achievement.

President Obama has requested an increase of $301 million in HUD’s Homeless Assistance Grants. At a time of budgetary and fiscal challenges, $301 million sounds like a lot of money. In my view, it’s a small price to pay to achieve an end to chronic homelessness and save the lives of roughly 100,000 people. It’s especially small when compared to the cost of doing nothing, not only in terms of human lives, but also in real taxpayer dollars.

Dean Klein, director of the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness in Virginia, relates how a shift from managing to ending homelessness led to innovative practices, strong collaborations, and truly incredible results.

Public Housing Authorities have forged strong partnerships, innovative policies, and invested in best practices to make a significant impact in ending homelessness, explains the Executive Director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities Sunia Zaterman.

Atlanta’s work shows how an engaged team can leverage the 100-day challenge from a Rapid Results Boot Camp to bring in meaningful partners. It can energize an entire community while building momentum so the work goes past the 100-days and becomes a cultural shift for everyone working in the system.

Recently, I wrote about the urgency to increase our efforts to end chronic homelessness, suggesting key questions Continuums of Care and Ten Year Plan leaders should ask. Today I want to pose similar questions related to how we address family homelessness. People in families make up nearly 40 percent of the homeless population nationwide. To reach our goal of ending family and child homelessness by the year 2020, we must realign our programs and systems now. As a mother, this quote from Marian Wright Edelman tugs at me: “The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people's children.” Shaping better community responses to family homelessness is about shaping our collective future. Thank you for stepping up to the challenge..

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs (SNAPs) launched an effort to clarify their priorities and outline the changes HUD would like Continuums of Care to propose in the forthcoming FY 2013 Notice of Funding Availability competition.

Not long ago, I sat in the same place that you are sitting, managing the Continuum of Care and leading our community's ten-year plan to end homelessness. You have challenging jobs to do and I know you are balancing many competing issues and priorities. I've been fortunate to visit communities that are making great progress, and to support and work with communities that still struggle. Now I would like to share some reflections on the lessons I've learned from you, my colleagues, in our mission to end homelessness. Thank you for listening and especially for acting.

Today I want to address chronic homelessness, which is the first goal in Opening Doors. We have fewer than 1,000 days to bring the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness to zero; every day and every minute counts. For people living with disabilities and disabling conditions, every day or minute spent on the streets is another day or minute spent struggling to survive. So this message is a call to action. I am reaching out to ask, are we doing everything we can do to end chronic homelessness by 2015? Here are the top-ten questions you and the leaders of your ten-year plan should consider (not likely to be picked up by David Letterman but hopefully useful nonetheless).

“First come, first serve” is a concept we learn from the earliest age and is reinforced throughout our whole lives—from the moment we stand in the school lunch line to receiving our driver’s license at the DMV. Placing people in a line (or ‘queue’ to use another technical term), has been programmed into our everyday thinking such that “first come, first serve” is the default approach we use to distribute goods or services or provide help. In some contexts it seems fair, but is it the right way to end homelessness?

In my new role at the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), I work on coordinating the Federal interagency effort to achieve the goal of ending chronic homelessness by 2015. This goal lured me to this job in the first place, and since coming here, my conviction that we can indeed end chronic homelessness has only increased. At the same time, I remain troubled at the current scale of the problem and at the slowness of our collective progress in reducing this number. According to the most recent Point-in-Time count from 2012, the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness on any given night is still nearly 100,000. While this number is below 100,000 for the first time in history, it’s far from zero, and we have less than three years to go.

Three individuals, each from a different community partnerwho took part in Omaha, Nebraska’s Point-in-Time count, shared their experiences in this blog.

Introduction on the Omaha Point in Time Count by Erin Porterfield, Director of MACCH

The Metropolitan Area Continuum of Care for the Homeless (MACCH) held the Point-in-Time count on January 30, 2013 between 8:00 PM and midnight. For the unsheltered count, more than 40 volunteers were separated into teams with a trained outreach worker as team leader. These outreach workers conduct outreach weekly and administer the Vulnerability Index for the count as they would during a typical outreach. As part of the annual count, we invite community leaders to join us to boost understanding of our process and more importantly, to meet the people we find experiencing homelessness.

Our community selects the evening time period hoping the people we find will accept a ride to shelter instead of braving the biting temperature of 15 degrees that night. The region covered by the count includes Douglas and Sarpy Counties in Nebraska and Pottawattomie County in Iowa. The region comprises a metro area population of 634,233 with more than 1 percent (at least 7,333 people) of whom experience homelessness annually. During this year’s count we found 19 people living outside ( a decrease of two people from 2011), two of whom asked to be transported to shelter.

On November 6, 2012, USICH joined other Federal partners (including representatives from the Department of Justice, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and State) and local advocates for a meeting convened by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and Magdelena Sepúlveda, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Ms. Sepulveda has been representing the UN as Special Rapporteur since 2008 and travels the world bringing attention to the rights of people living with poverty. The meeting focused on two recent UN reports, adopted by consensus (including the United States): the first, adopting the new UN Guiding Principles on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, the second, a report by the Rapporteur on the access to justice for persons living in extreme poverty. Ms. Sepúlveda comes originally from Chile and has studied in the Netherlands and in the U.K. and has worked at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations-mandated University of Peace. The Special Rapporteur pointed out that the lack of housing can be seen as a violation of human rights. In addition to housing, the UN resolution reiterates that all people have a right to justice, including representation in civil matters where basic human rights, such as the right to housing, are at stake. USICH was praised for its position on human rights as documented in the report, Searching out Solutions, Constructive Alternatives to the Criminalization of Homelessness, which recognizes that criminalization of homelessness may not only violate constitutional rights, but also the U.S.’s human rights treaty obligations.

posted in Access to Justice, Affordable and Supportive Housing by: Joshua Bamberger, Special Advisor to the Executive Director, USICH and Eric Tars, Director of Human Rights and Children’s Rights Programs, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty

As noted in the most recent USICH newsletter, the importance of connecting ex-offenders to safe, stable housing is a key element in successful reentry. In a few months, Los Angeles County Housing Authority, will allow ex-offenders on parole or probation who are also experiencing homelessness to be eligible for vouchers under the long-running homeless set-aside. This move will enable access to the nearly 22,000 vouchers for ex-offenders who are experiencing homelessness – a large group of individuals in Los Angeles County and individuals who face many barriers to housing stability.

That's what the Chief Medical Officer for Health Share of Oregon told me was the approach to change that the new Coordinated Care Organization, created out of the State of Oregon's health reform plan, needed to take. I had a chance to meet leaders in this effort when I travelled to Portland September 19. One change that was visible was who was at the table. Big hospital systems are pairing up with nonprofits that have been delivering care on the streets and at community clinics, hoping to learn from the work that organizations like Central City Concern have been doing for years. One of the premises of health homes and accountable care organizations, called Coordinated Care Organizations in Oregon, is that the only way to achieve the "triple aim" of health reform that is, better care, better health, and lower costs, is to change the whole approach to patient care. That can start with big systems like hospitals and their data about who has multiple hospital admissions or many trips to the emergency room. And it also has to start with actual patient care.

Today, NLIHC (National Low Income Housing Coalition) released the report Renters in Foreclosure: A Fresh Look at an Ongoing Problem. The report builds on its 2009 report Renters in Foreclosure: Defining the Problem, Identifying Solutions,which found that renters comprised 40 percent of the families facing foreclosures of their homes. This number remains the same in 2012, representing a three-fold increase in the number of American renters who are affected by foreclosure. Specifically, the report also takes a historical look at the ways the early stages of the foreclosure crisis disproportionately affected high-poverty areas. African-American neighborhoods still experience a disproportionate number of foreclosures, especially in the multi-family sector.

Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) administer powerful resources for very vulnerable populations, making them critical partners for ending homelessness. That’s why CSH is proud to present a great new resource for PHAs and other stakeholders interested in pursuing supportive housing in their communities. Online now at csh.org/phatoolkit, this new resource provides tools, examples and advice for PHAs venturing into or expanding work in supportive housing.

The biggest event of this week was our quarterly Council meeting, which was held on Wednesday at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The focus of this meeting was on the ways states and communities can best use mainstream resources, like school programs, public housing resources, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), woven with targeted homelessness resources to make progress. USICH Chair and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was joined by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, Director of the Corporation for National and Community Service Wendy Spencer, Luke Tate from the Domestic Policy Council, and key representatives from 18 member agencies.

The Housing Choice Voucher and Public Housing programs are the largest sources of rental assistance for low-income households in the U.S. Unfortunately, these programs are not funded adequately to serve all, or even most, eligible applicants. As a result, families often spend years waiting to be offered assistance. New research provides a more detailed picture of who applies for and receives rental assistance, and their housing conditions while waiting to receive assistance.

I spent August 8, 9, and 10 in Louisiana with Don Moulds, the Acting Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services. Don is also Secretary Sebelius’ point person for USICH. We went to talk with people operating and overseeing the Louisiana Permanent Supportive Housing project. For those who aren’t familiar with this incredible project, you can find more information from the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which highlighted this state-wide project as part of their Focus on Health Care Series in February 2012. If you don’t have time to listen to the webinar now, here’s the short version: after the hurricanes in 2005 and 2006, the state, advocates, and community providers worked together to figure out how to help people with one-time federal recovery investments. What has emerged is a unique model to use these new resources for housing and supportive services to provide permanent supportive housing across the region. Federal investments included Community Development Block Grant funds, Shelter Plus Care and Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers.

One of the most detrimental trends affecting a student’s ability to succeed in the classroom happens outside of school walls. When parents or guardians are struggling to make ends meet financially or shifting housing locations due to work, the children involved are often forced to move from one school to another and then another and so on. This constant mobility is disruptive, making it difficult for a child to feel connected to a school, to make connections with new friends, to be accepted socially, but most importantly, to stay on target academically. The Siemer Institute for Family Stability (SIFS) headquartered at the United Way of Central Ohio is responding to the challenge.

At the end of May, USICH, HUD, and the Corporation for Supportive Housing hosted representatives from 45 communities in Washington, DC for a day-long convening on the important topic of Public Housing Agency (PHA) engagement in local efforts to prevent and end homelessness. Over 110 PHA and Continuum of Care (CoC) representatives joined with Federal staff and other partners to learn more about innovative work already underway in communities, as well as to discuss common policy, regulatory, and political challenges that sometimes inhibit PHAs’ ability to better serve individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Earlier this year, we hosted a similar convening on the West Coast.

As clearly articulated in Opening Doors, ending homelessness in this country will require communities to leverage mainstream resources—like public housing and housing choice vouchers—in unprecedented ways. Consider the following facts...

Last month, over 600 practitioners, policymakers, advocates, and consumers gathered together in New Orleans at an event called the ‘Housing First Partners Conference.’ The 2 ½ day event was the first national conference focused exclusively on the Housing First approach of providing people experiencing chronic homelessness with affordable rental housing linked to services immediately and without treatment preconditions. Let not the significance of this event be missed. It marks the moment of Housing First’s acceptance and establishment as the central approach for helping vulnerable men and women experiencing chronic homelessness permanently exit homelessness and regain health, hope, and dignity. As this movement goes mainstream, I leave the Housing First movement with three pieces of advice to retain the spirit of ingenuity that led to its birth.